Nearly eight years after his fabled career at CBS News imploded like a death star over the notorious George W. Bush/Texas Air National Guard segment on 60 Minutes Wednesday, he cant stop combing the debris for shards of vindication.

I have a story to tell from my point of view, he says about his new book, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News, which roasts network management for its spineless behavior during the Bush episode; takes potshots at his successor in the CBS Evening News anchor chair, Katie Couric, as a purveyor of News Lite; and settles scores with former colleagues who, as he writes, after pretending to be friends for all those years, stealthily snuck around giving anonymous newspaper quotes and otherwise scheming to put the dirk in deep when I was down and hurting.

Rather explains: I wanted to tell it as honestly and as candidly as I could withas Lyndon Johnson used to saythe bark off.

The Sept. 8, 2004, Bush segment and its use of dubious documents to bolster the case that the 43rd president benefited from family connections and then went AWOL during his Vietnam-era stint in a champagne unit of the guard, plus Rathers subsequent lawsuit against the network he served for 44 years24 of them as anchor and managing editor of CBSs flagship news programaccount for only a fourth of the book. Rather initially dug in his heels during the firestorm that accompanied his damning report on a sitting president two months before his reelection. But he ultimately apologized for airing widely debunked photocopies of purported memos critical of young Bushs performance and allegedly written by his commanding officer, the late Jerry B. Killian, lieutenant colonel in the Texas Air National Guard, saying CBS News could no longer vouch for their authenticity.

A CBS-commissioned investigation of the disasterheaded by Richard Thornburgh, U.S. attorney general when Bushs father was president, and Associated Press chief executive Louis D. Boccardifaulted Rather and his top producer, Mary Mapes, among others, for their misplaced reliance on a dubious source and their sloppy vetting of the questionable documents, which should never have aired. They made the situation far worse, the investigation concluded, by defending the documents for nearly two weeks after the initial reportnever mind the mounting evidence against them from the blogosphere, competitors in the mainstream media, and CBSs own hired document experts. Five news executives and producers, including Mapes, lost their jobs in the aftermath, and 60 Minutes Wednesday was canceled.

But these days Rather insists the Killian memos were real. Pop Quiz

I believe them to be genuine, he tells The Daily Beast, holding forth in his corner office at his weekly HDNet magazine program, Dan Rather Reports, in a musty old building off Times Square. I did at the time, I did in the immediate aftermath of it, and yes, I do now ... And I think the longer we go, nobody has ever proven that the documents were not what they purported to be, and after this length of time and given the controversy and high profile of it, my view is that if they were not genuine, by this time somebody wouldve come forward and said heres the proof that theyre not. Nobody has done that. (Unfortunately for Rather, nobody has come forward with proof that they are in fact legitimate, and the preponderance of the available evidence continues to cast doubt on their authenticity.)

As an old CBS'er I can tell you the documents were totaly disproved, largly due to work on FR.

#1: The forged documents were typed in Times Roman. Times Roman was a very rare font, not used by typewriers. Tehy used Pica, Courier and Elite, not TR. TR became popular with word processors, not before.

#2: The zip codes for certain addresses for current in 2004, but had never been used until 17 years after the letters were supposedly written.

#3: The abreviations for terms like Squadren, Temporary Duty amd oters were Army, USAR and ARNG, not USAFR.

#4: The superscript in the purpoted memo was not available on ant USAF or USAFR typewriter for decades after the memo date.

Bottom line; it was total BS, and Rather knew if from atleast 24 hours after the story aired. His producer, the hard-leftist Mapes, knew if before ther story ran.

One of the biggest was there were animated gifs at the time showing that the space each line took up across the page was identical to the document created in word.

The evidence was legion.

In fact, Dan lost all credibility on the Friday following the 60 minutes broadcast. He actually had the audacity to say they were most likely genuine and even flashed, for just a second, a document from the 70’s that had superscript. Before the internet, that would have been QED. But we were able to vet everything and expose him for the bald face liar that he was.

To this day I call Dan Rather the first well known casualty of the free flow of information afforded by the web.

Rather used to own a home in my community of Lakeway TX. This was not his main residence, he used it as a “weekender” home. I don’t know how often he came here, but I did see him around town a time or two.

One day, I drove by his house and noted that no one was there at the time. I went home and got a Bush for President sign and put it in his front yard.

I’m sure he never saw it, because it remained there for a long time after the election, but it was a fun thing to do.

14
posted on 05/01/2012 7:04:58 AM PDT
by basil
(It's time to rid the country of "gun free zones" aka "Killing Fields")

Yes;Dan; we hear your 'truth'. . .and we hear Al Sharpton as well. (Tawanna WAS a victim; and Al did the right thing. . .) And (beyond 'being there' and using up band aids and camera film)John Kerry 'served' his country in Viet Nam. . .and Obama has a legitimate Birth Certificate. . .and loves America.

Just pinch me. . .

17
posted on 05/01/2012 7:15:04 AM PDT
by cricket
( It is not just 'the economy' and Newt knows it. . .)

Unfortunately for Rather, nobody has come forward with proof that they are in fact legitimate, and the preponderance of the available evidence continues to cast doubt on their authenticity.

At first I just thought that Rather was dour because he always looked like he needed a shave. Then when he could not answer a simple question, which is more 10% of $1,000 or 10% of 1,000,000? He seemed like a big dummy, or just another leftist with a disordered mind.

I believe them to be genuine, he tells The Daily Beast, holding forth in his corner office at his weekly HDNet magazine program, Dan Rather Reports, in a musty old building off Times Square. I did at the time, I did in the immediate aftermath of it, and yes, I do now ... And I think the longer we go, nobody has ever proven that the documents were not what they purported to be, and after this length of time and given the controversy and high profile of it, my view is that if they were not genuine, by this time somebody wouldve come forward and said heres the proof that theyre not. Nobody has done that. (Unfortunately for Rather, nobody has come forward with proof that they are in fact legitimate, and the preponderance of the available evidence continues to cast doubt on their authenticity.)

As I recall, it took the "guys in the basement in pajamas" less than a day to start questioning the validity of the printed records. If rather Dan is right (no, he's really left) they were typed on the beta version company of the future Microsoft on the really beta version of WORD on a computer that wasn't even a beta prototype at the time the documents were purported to be written. But that's alright Dan, we believe you -- now please just take your medicines and you'll feel a lot better.

And I think the longer we go, nobody has ever proven that the documents were not what they purported to be, and after this length of time and given the controversy and high profile of it, my view is that if they were not genuine, by this time somebody wouldve come forward and said heres the proof that theyre not. Nobody has done that.

Dan must not think anyone watches him. I caught a part of that broadcast in which he had his source on to interview. Dan asked the guy about him vetting his sources and information to which the guy basically said that he hadn't done any confirmation of information and that he had expected CBS to do it. The look on old Dan's face was priceless. Not to mention that the source had been presented as "unimpeachable" the week before and had been kept secret presumably to keep him from being killed by the Bush cabal. Then a week later brought him out. Either keeping him anonymous was done just because he was an unreliable source or Dan "burned" a source by endangering his life. Either way it's something an honest journalist doesn't do.

31
posted on 05/01/2012 7:51:07 AM PDT
by techcor
(I hope Obama succeeds, in being a one term president.)

and settles scores with former colleagues who, as he writes, after pretending to be friends for all those years, stealthily snuck around giving anonymous newspaper quotes and otherwise scheming to put the dirk in deep when I was down and hurting.

Let me spell it out for you Kenneth ..

You were a pompous assclown

The people you refer to as "friends" never did like you ... but you were powerful and vindictive ... so they fawned all over you instead.

When your own egotism inflicted a devastaing wound and stripped you of your power ... they gladly kicked you to the curb.

You are still a pompous assclown.

Case Closed

36
posted on 05/01/2012 8:23:12 AM PDT
by tx_eggman
(Liberalism is only possible in that moment when a man chooses Barabas over Christ.)

As I recall, it took the "guys in the basement in pajamas" less than a day to start questioning the validity of the printed records.

Faster. In fact one of the Ratherist "defences" against the FR analysis was that Freepers were crying "fake" in posts timemarked before the CBS segment went to air. OF course FR posts are timemarked Pacific time and the program ran 3 hours earlier on the East coast. IIRC correctly the MS-Word computer overlay match using the pdfs from the CBS website was one item that beat Hollywood Time.

38
posted on 05/01/2012 8:37:55 AM PDT
by Oztrich Boy
(This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel - Horace Walpole)

He's worse than that. The documents were not only fake, they were really, really BAD fakes. If Dan is so stupid that he can't see that, he deserves pity, not scorn. Believe me, pity is far worse to a "newsman" than scorn.

42
posted on 05/01/2012 8:56:05 AM PDT
by norwaypinesavage
(Galileo: In science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual)

They found a few with superscript and font, but they were special typewriters and the military buys things by the millions.

From my experience in the advertising trade, I'm familiar with those machines.

They were primarily employed by engraving and typesetting companies. They were huge -- filling an entire tabletop. They were massive...and obscenely heavy. And they printed their output on a tape, not on paper.

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